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competitive advantage

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How To Prepare When You Only Get One Shot At Persuasion

BY Kaihan KrippendorffTue Nov 29, 2011

Much of what is written about persuasion addresses the challenge of building influence over time. But when you have only one shot, you need to prepare differently.READ»

CORPORATE STRATEGY   |  Comment

To Move Your Business To A Higher Plane, Learn To Play 3-D Chess

BY Kaihan KrippendorffTue Nov 22, 2011

Great innovators think on multiple planes--think of the process as 3-D chess, the game Spock played to exercise his mind. 3-D chess requires you to not only protect against attack from pieces on your plane, but also from pieces above and below. A similar process of "strategic imagination" is the first step for anyone who wants to bring about significant change. READ»

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Finding Your Brand's "Red Sole"

BY Josh LinknerWed Nov 16, 2011

Women would gladly fork over upwards of $1000 for Christian Louboutin's much-coveted red soles. Whether it’s for yourself or your organization, the clearer you can make your single point of distinction, the closer you’ll get to seizing your full potential. And that’ll really get your competition seeing red. READ»

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8 Strategies To Fight Ordinary

BY Kaihan KrippendorffMon Nov 14, 2011

It used to take generations for your core business to devolve from the high-margin cutting edge to a low-price commodity. Now it can take just a few years. How can you fight commoditization and remain or become extraordinary and profitable in a fast-moving world? READ»

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How The Founder Of GoDaddy Brought It Back From The Brink

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Nov 2, 2011

The samurai used to say goodbye to their families before battle. Having accepted death, they fought with focus, not distracted by thoughts of going home. Great innovators often undergo a similar ritual before their final battle--which is what GoDaddy's founder learned from his company's near-death experience. READ»

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Owning The Onramp: What Netflix Gave Up When It Ditched The DVD

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Oct 26, 2011

The onramp is the point at which customers enter the game, the position of power. If you can own the onramp, you can extract the value. But by moving to a model that others can copy relatively easily, the company invited competitors to start diverting its traffic. READ»

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Survive Or Thrive--The Choice Is Yours

BY Kaihan KrippendorffThu Oct 20, 2011

Despite the recent stock-market rally and the continued long-term bullishness I am seeing in most corporations, a huge portion of companies are worried about how they will survive. Here are four critical steps you can take to trigger a transformation, to move from just surviving to thriving.READ»

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Learning To Thrive While Your Competitors Flounder

BY Kaihan KrippendorffTue Oct 11, 2011

To be one of the few who thrive, to sail ahead of your competition over the next five to 10 years, you want to remember "VBCA"--vision, belief, capital, advantage. READ»

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Why Your People Don’t Trust You, And How To Fix It

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Sep 28, 2011

The pace of organizational change is accelerating and old methods of building team cohesiveness haven't caught up. No matter your length of tenure or your level of expertise, though, there is one key way in which you can win the trust and support of your employees. READ»

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Listening To Your Customers With The Five Digital Senses

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Sep 14, 2011

In person-to-person conversations, we listen and influence others based on our five senses. Online companies should similarly listen to their customers with the five digital senses. Here's what they are and how to gauge them to better serve your audience. READ»

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Lessons In Corporate Strategy From BlackBerry's Flawed PlayBook

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Aug 17, 2011

RIM's PlayBook is, by many counts, superior to the iPad. It is thinner, lighter, has a better camera, and it runs Flash. Yet I--one of BlackBerry's most loyal fans--threw in the towel and returned my PlayBook. The reasons I did so help explain why a company whose revenue grew by $5 billion, or 33%, last year endured a stock decline of 60%. READ»

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Take A Page From The Steve Case Playbook

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Aug 10, 2011

Great strategists win by seeing options that others ignore. They approach the game with a different playbook. A look at Steve Case's approach to business, and how it can help you succeed. READ»

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5 Ways To Get Back In The Game

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Aug 3, 2011

You’ve surely felt it before--especially in this type of economy. You are tired and beaten up and you wonder what you are in it for. All innovators have faced the challenge of getting back into the game. They wake up tired on the campaign trail, find their budget request rejected, and deliver that same pitch for the 100th time. Here are five tips to reviving your go get 'em spirit.READ»

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How To Make Millions Through Storytelling

BY Kaihan KrippendorffThu Jul 28, 2011

For the journalists out of work at Rupert Murdoch's News International, for the authors who will be selling fewer books with the bankruptcy of Borders Books, here is an idea for turning your storytelling talents into real money.READ»

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Caracas Debrief: Outthinkers Don't Hold Their Breath

BY Kaihan KrippendorffThu Jul 21, 2011

While businesses in Venezuela continue to struggle with the same uncertainties, activity is brewing under the surface.READ»

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Change The World With "Old School" Social Networking

BY Kaihan KrippendorffFri Jul 15, 2011

The Milken Institute published a paper earlier this year that points to some fundamental problems with our health care system. Our system has devolved into providing care (it is a health care system) rather than finding cures. It is ...READ»

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The Technologist In Maid's Clothing

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Jul 6, 2011

There is something going on that will increasingly complicate the lives of the analysts, investors, regulators, and lawyers whose lives depend on a tidy classification of companies by industry. Is Google an advertising, software, online-service, payments, or mobile phone business? Is Apple a computer, software, design, or digital entertainment company? READ»

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Apple Takes On The Cloud

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Jun 29, 2011

The cloud, or software as a service, is old news. Salesforce.com has been pushing it for a decade and many of the companies I've covered here have been offering what we now call "cloud" computing solutions for years. (You can view my ...READ»

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The Unexplainable Rise Of Google

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Jun 22, 2011

In August of 2004, Silicon Valley and investors worldwide were engaged in what would turn out to be an historical debate: what is Google worth?READ»

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Taking The Middle Path To The Middle Kingdom

BY Kaihan KrippendorffWed Jun 15, 2011

There is a predictable strategic narrative unfolding in China. Those who know this narrative have a chance to build enormous value for their companies. Those who do not are likely to miss out.READ»

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